Forum Activity for @Bud Stockwell

Bacon in chocolate

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

I read the discussion under shelf life and it touched on bacon and food safety. I wondered if anyone is making chocolate with bacon and what techniques to use. The food science dept. at a local university said I need to get the water activity to under 8 but I don't have a hydrometer to measure water activity. I was planning on caramelizing the chocolate first which seems like it should cook out any water but I am feeling cautious. I did like the suggestion to get it to taste and feel like I want it to and have a very short period on the shelf. Still ideas from those experienced with bacon would be helpful. Thanks
Bud

updated by @Bud Stockwell: 04/14/16 04:41:59

Display cases

Posted in: Opinion

A case made for chocolate keeps the chocolate at 65-68 degrees and 45% humidity. A refrigerator is usually high humidity and 40 degrees. I think a wine cooler keeps it at 55-57 degrees Fahrenheit and with an average of 60% relative humidity. If your confections are in a case that is not temperature controlled and the temperature in the room fluctuates, your confections could bloom long before the 4 weeks.

Display cases

Posted in: Opinion

Hey Amber,It depends on your recipe. Does it have fresh cream and butter? if so and you don't add anything like Citric acid or potassium sorbate than according to Peter Greweling in his fabulous book, chocolate and confections, about 3 weeks. Some authors recommend freezing or refrigerating the truffles but Greweling says it effects the texture. I do not refrigerate mine for more than 5 minutes after I dip them. There is a thread on this site about freezing that I glanced at and should reread. I just know you have to be very careful to refrigerate after freezing to acclimate the truffle so it doesn't condense water and cause bloom. I don't have any issues with Citric acid but I won't use potassium sorbate. I haven't sent them out to be tested yet for shelf life. Instead I make small batches that I can sell through in about a 3 week period.

Display cases

Posted in: Opinion

I purchased my case from "Cold Core" www.cold-core.com It has humidity control as well as being able to keep the case at the correct temperature for candy. This is a higher temp that a normal cooler which is usually 20 degrees cooler.That being said, you do want to be careful that you can afford the expenses of opening and not making any money for a prolonged period of time. Make sure you spend some time thinking about what your up-front costs are as well as your ongoing expenses. It's a big step opening a business and not always a profitable one. I've been in business for 30 years with my natural foods store and the retail chocolate shop for 3 years. I also make the chocolate for the retail store. It not the easiest biz, but it sure is fun. I'll be happy to answer what questions I can about start up.

Display cases

Posted in: Opinion

Hey Amber,When I first opened my retail shop I used a non-refrigerated case. As you can imagine, it is fine if the room is a fairly constant temperature and it doesn't get above 70 degrees. We had a lot of unacceptable blooming. You won't get as much shelf life out of your product. For every one degree drop in temperature you extend your shelf life 7 days. ( I think that was the number I read.) If you're making truffles with fresh cream and butter it will be best to get a case made for chocolate as soon as possible.Good luck with things.

Need Help in Finding A certain product

Posted in: Classifieds F/S or Wanted

Linnea's is the best source for candy cups. Cheaper than papermart or modpak. www.linneasinc.com

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

I think it may have been a couple of issues. One reason was that as I dipped different centers, the ganache would slightly melt and what I would have was not pure chocolate but different fats (cream, nuts, etc.) I solved this by starting with fresh chocolate each time. I would use the leftover for my new ganache. (The technique that I use for making a ganache is to temper my chocolate and mix that with my cream/invert sugar that has boiled and let cool to 95 degrees. I then add my butter and tempered chocolate together. That way the ganache sets up much quicker and is much firmer. I'm told that under a microscope, my ganache would look more tempered than one using the method of pouring the boiling cream over the tempered chocolate. But I digress.So that was one issue. The other was messing around with my temperatures. I had changed my coveratures around the time I bought the machine and needed to find the right custom temperature settings for the combination's of chocolate that I was using. I hope this helped.Bud

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

I want to thank you all for your kind posts.To recap, my problem is a mild case of bloom caused by my not heating the chocolate high enough to melt out all of the seed. I'll also add more seed as I have been adding about 20% when I hit 95 degrees. Even though I use a temperer that is always stirring the mass of chocolate, I should still stir more by hand to ensure even temperature distribution. I might also lean to letting it over-crystallize a bit. I have also been adding up to 20% more melted chocolate when at 95 degrees to my tempered chocolate when I was running low. Now I'll let it cool a bit more so the temperatures are closer. And stir, stir, stir.Again, thanks. It's great finding a community of fellow chocolatiers who are so kind and open to helping.Yours,Bud

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

It stays put and does not wipe off.

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

I have a Hillard Temperer and a Cocovision Delta. I melt the bulk of my chocolate overnight at about95-100. In the AM it goes into the temperer put the temperature up to 112 or so. I grind up some tempered chocolate and add that to the chocolate as I turn town the temp. I go down to 85 and then go back up to 89. I check for temper. If it's not snappy & shiny I add a little more seed and check recheck.sometimes it looks great, other times this damn oil like swirl.

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

We keep the room between 65-68 degrees and the humidity at 45%.

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

Hey Mark,Often I have a great temper but occasionally this happens to me. It may happen when enrobe a truffle, or a piece of slabbed ganache or make some bark. What do you mean by tablet? As I said, I usually have a nice finish to my tempered chocolate but when this happens I'm perplexed. I certainly have experienced classic bloomed chocolate, dull with no snap. This appears to be in temper except for this film like swirl. any thoughts?

General Tempering Question

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

What is going on with my temper? When my dark chocolate sets up, it has great snap and is shiny yet I have swirls on chocolate as if I heated the chocolate too high and it's the cacao butter separating. I didn't let the temperer get above 112. I also get some spots that look like a popped bubble. It doesn't appear to be bloomed. It will not degrade or turn gray over the ext few weeks but it's not the shiny, perfect temper I'm looking for. Help anyone?
updated by @Bud Stockwell: 04/11/15 12:45:31

Does anyone know of a bulk choc. as good as Valrhona in the same general $ range?

Posted in: Opinion

Michel Cluizel (noble ingredients) has some nice chocolate and they are in that same price range. It's a drag that Amedei shut down their New York office as I use some of theirs for a couple truffles.

longevity, how to make your chocolates last longer.

Posted in: Tech Help, Tips, Tricks, & Techniques

You can always add some citric acid to your recipe. 1part to 100. I thought freezing your ganache really changed the texture.

Chocolate packaging & boxes, something special?

Posted in: Opinion

Check out aspecialtybox.com for some more nice boxes. I second the poster who mentioned Chocolat-Chocolat and finally, I use sweetpacking.com for my one level up for standard packaging. For my boxes I just give away, I use Mod-Pac. They are fantastic with turnaround time on a wedding boxes when you need custom imprinting.

Chocolate packaging & boxes, something special?

Posted in: Opinion

That's a great Idea. I have a bunch of their boxes with wood sides and the mahogany chests. Thye are expensive and we don't sell tons of them but a refund on the refill could really help. ThanksBud

chocolate tempering machines

Posted in: Opinion

I have a Hillard's little dipper, the Hillard's 240lb temperer and the Delta. You can't beat the Hillard 240 for when you need to really kick out the chocolate but you need to be comfortable with tempering. The delta usually produces a well tempered chocolate and my helper prefers using as it's more automated. I find that it's capacity is small and sometimes it tells you you are in temper and it's not. My baffle broke a couple of weeks ago but they replaced it for free (it was within warantee)I like the idea of the baffle and would love to try it sometime.I would love to hear if someone has a temperer that will be about the size of my big hillard yet has an auto-temperer and is not crazy expensive.